Always in Motion
by Dark-Eyed-Junco
Summary: Oola doesn't die in Jabba's palace that day, and a certain bounty hunter is also saved through this twist of fate. With the galaxy still at war, Boba Fett will have to manipulate events to his advantage as usual, and Oola learn to survive the consequences, especially regarding the looming shadow of his former Sith employer.


Oola staggered back from the dais as the trap door fell open, just as Jabba dropped her leash from his stubby hands. She pitched forward, and for a tense moment stood precariously on the sharp edge of the opening in the floor, the wide empty square a yawning maw as she rocked along the edge. Unable to right herself completely, muscles strained, she summoned her training and propelled herself backward in a blind jump. Grasping the leash, she whipped it away from her legs before she could become entangled. A long, suspended moment later, she landed upon the viewing grate set in the floor for Jabba and his guests, set for the purpose of viewing his favored method of execution. As the metal grating yielded beneath her weight, buckling slightly as it absorbed her fall, her legs collapsed beneath her. She fell onto her hands and knees in front of Jabba's dais, encircled by the shifting mass of his petitioners and guards; some yelled or cheered as they watched the near-miss unfold. As her eyes focused on the spaces in the grate, she could just make out a few skeletal remains in the cavern below; could also smell the sickening, sweet odor of rotted flesh, though she saw no fresh bodies.

Jabba bellowed, "Grab her!" in Huttese. His majordomo, Bib Fortuna (a Twi'lek like her, though he'd never acknowledge it) rushed forward and pulled her violently off her knees. Oola didn't fight back; body depleted from what she'd just done, what she'd barely escaped., she barely found the strength to stand at all. Fortune seized the leash and tightened it painfully around his forearm as he pulled her into him. He yanked on it sharply, drawing her head back and exposing her throat to Jabba.

"I'm not sorry," she rasped, but her croak was lost in the shrieks and chants of Jabba's retinue. Jabba's new golden protocol droid nervously flinched at the spectacle, occasionally gasping out a nervous interjection.

The only individual who remained silent was Boba Fett, the bounty hunter Jabba sometimes employed in and out of palace; especially when he felt he needed extra protection. Briefly Oola glared at Fett. Anything organic about him was hidden behind his ancient Mandalorian armor; dispassionate, almost apathetic, to the chaos around him, he seemed more robotic than the actual droids in the palace and on the dais.

 _Maybe Jabba will just tell him to shoot me_ , she thought as she observed the blaster rifle he cradled.

She stared too long; his blank, visored gaze met hers, and her breath hitched. In some ways, he was more frightening than Jabba, whose ego and emotions could sometimes be manipulated or appealed to; Fett had no such weaknesses. She'd even seen him use his rifle before-though he hadn't shot to kill, but to incapacitate one of Jabba's debtors who'd attempted an escape. He'd barely waited for Jabba to give the order before firing.

But it wasn't Fett Jabba called upon now. "Bring her here," Jabba commanded Fortuna, who shoved her forward, the long nails of one hand digging into her back, the other clawed hand sharply grasped around her arm. He pushed her toward Jabba until she stood in front of the open trap, toes nearly over the edge.

"What would you like to do with her, Master?" he asked.

Jabba regarded her, reclined as he partook of his hookah; eyes half-lidded, he seemed to drink her in, as if she were another intoxicant. Finally: "This one may be more interesting alive than dead," he mused. "Yet how can I be sure?" His yellow, reptilian eyes scanned the room. "What do you think, my subjects and guests? Who wishes me to spare this dexterous rebel's life? Has she earned a stay on her sentence with that impromptu performance?"

Oola cringed as a deluge of howls echoed off the stone walls and pierced her ears like a barrage of needles, even despite her leather headwear. Yet the pain wasn't so intense that she didn't register the words; rough though they were, most nevertheless were cheers and shouts of approval.

When Jabba gestured again, Bib Fortuna growled and pulled her away from the opening in the floor. Apparently, Fortuna had wanted to see a show with the rancor.

"Let her rest, then," Jabba said, and smiled froggishly. "I think I want her to perform tonight as well."

Her stomach sank even as her knees trembled in relief. She was alive, but still here. And she'd revisit the same dangers in just a few hours.

As Fortuna led her from the room, Oola struggled to keep up with him, her legs still threatening to give way. Snapping at her to move, he led her down a dark side corridor, toward the room where the dancers usually stayed when not summoned.

"You are impossibly lucky, little Oola," Fortuna said as he brought her to the scratched and dented durasteel door. He entered the code to open it. The lock was barely necessary, of course; the dancers needed little incentive to stay inside, and there were too many guards in the palace and placed at the exits. Even if one dared to risk escape, they'd find it impossible to evade all of them. The real reason it was there was to protect them from Jabba's own men.

When the door slid open, Fortuna guided her in by the arm with faux gentility, though he knew not to enter himself. "We will have to see how long your luck lasts." After it closed and the mechanised lock whirred and clicked, she heard his nails faintly scrape the metal before he left, as if giving the door a parting caress. Oola suppressed the convulsing shudder that threatened to frisson through her body.

Only a few other girls inhabited the room currently; two Twi'leks and a Togruta. They all regarded her questioningly, no doubt alarmed by her expression, though Oola felt too removed to guess how she looked. She didn't bother to explain, to clarify what had happened or why she'd been escorted back. Instead, she went to lay on her small pallet, worm-eaten and stained and smelling of sweat, and pulled a threadbare, scratchy blanket over her.

She didn't exactly feel anything as she lay there-not distinctly, anyway. Maybe her face was as cold and expressionless as the faceless mask of the bounty hunter, and that was what had worried her fellow dancers.

-tbc-


End file.
